Friday, March 29, AD 2024 6:06am

Pernicious Make-Believe

“One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.”

George Orwell

 

 

 

We live in a low, dishonest time when powerful forces in our society seek to have us render obeisance to self-evident lies, and those who dare speak the truth are shouted down.  Nowhere is this more the case than in the area of sex, where the central dividing line of humanity, that God made us man and woman, is taken to be an artificial construct, and that we may choose our “gender identity” and that others should be forced, at peril of losing jobs, draconian fines and imprisonment, to treat as gospel truth this manifest absurdity.  Times of deep decadence usually are ages of entrenched mendacity, but our time outdoes all the preceding examples of such folly by politicizing basic biology.  43 years ago Solzhenitsyn in the old Soviet Union penned an essay, Live Not by Lies.  Go here to read it.  Let that be our motto.  We must have courage that truth will prevail and refuse to cower before lies, even if the rest of the world is shouting the falsehoods.  Let us take courage from the fact that right makes might and that God, Truth Incarnate, will ever be with us in our struggle.  Besides, our adversaries are fools at war with reality, and reality has a way of winning in the end.

 

 

 

 

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Don L
Don L
Wednesday, October 4, AD 2017 5:04am

To quote “Cinderella”
“In my own little corner of my own little room, I can be whatever I want to be….”

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Wednesday, October 4, AD 2017 5:57am

Seen on Instapundit: “Orwell’s ‘1984’ is the future liberals want.”

Philip Nachazel
Philip Nachazel
Wednesday, October 4, AD 2017 6:09am

This slippery slope that the culture is riding down has no positive end in sight. The push to normalize pedophilia is the next demonic goal, “minor attractive” lifestyle choices.
This age, our current culture war, is raging and if we are not engaged in the fight we will see the enemy devour the innocent children. The devil is hungry. The beast is gaining strength.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/10948796/Paedophilia-is-natural-and-normal-for-males.html

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Wednesday, October 4, AD 2017 7:11am

There are people highly placed in my company who believe in this multi-gender nonsense. They were put into their positions precisely because they support the aim and goal of today’s effeminate liberal progressivism and eco-wacko, enviro-nazi global warming asininity. They say they believe wholly and fully in science, and they even have degrees in nuclear science. But they spout this godless anti-science crap off every chance they get. How can anyone be so blind? How can you know physics but fail to understand biology?

bob kurland
Admin
Wednesday, October 4, AD 2017 8:45am

LQC, “How can you know physics, but fail to understand biology?”….Speaking as a physicist who has done biophysical applications in nmr and MRI, I say biology is a lot more difficult to understand than physics. Moreover, science doesn’t have anything to say about values, and it’s values that are being perverted by the new culture.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Wednesday, October 4, AD 2017 8:59am

“,,,,biology is a lot more difficult to understand than physics.”

Thank God, then, that I didn’t go into a biology career – medical, zoological, pharmacological, etc. Physics in Naval Nuclear Power School was difficult enough. And besides, I would have failed organic chemistry; my older brother majored in that and he described how difficult it was to master.

But you are correct, Dr. Kurland: “….science doesn’t have anything to say about values, and it’s values that are being perverted by the new culture.”

trackback
Wednesday, October 4, AD 2017 9:06am

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Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Wednesday, October 4, AD 2017 9:32am

You are both brilliant thinkers Bob K and LCC but i sense something wrong with your separation of science ( or as I take your meaning biological or physical facts) from morality. Moral values may be seen as a human construct but what is inherent good or bad is not imposed by man on the “facts” of life
somehow morality resides within and in fact fills the realities of corporeal life.
Science does have something to say about moral values (psalm 19). We see goodness in the very structure and functionality of everything created…Time, Place and material.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Wednesday, October 4, AD 2017 10:12am

Anzlyne, you have a valid point, for isn’t what you describe called “natural law?” St. Paul states in Romans 1:19-21:

“19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse; 21 for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. ”

Nevertheless, science itself – “the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment” – is neither moral nor immoral. That study may derive from a person’s values and its results may inform a person’s values, but as DR. Kurland pointed out, “…doesn’t have anything to say about values…”

Furthermore, the scientific method may be defined as follows:

“A method of research in which a problem is identified, relevant data are gathered, a hypothesis is formulated from these data, and the hypothesis is empirically tested.”

The research done by the scientific method may derive from a person’s values and its results may inform a person’s values, but it doesn’t really say anything about values.

Another thing: our English word science derives from the Latin noun scientia which in turn derives from the Latin present participle sciens which devolves from the verb scio which means “I know.” Knowledge is NOT value. Knowledge should inform values. And St. Paul clearly says:

“Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them.”

In the original Koine Greek this verse is rendered as follows:

“διότι τὸ γνωστὸν τοῦ θεοῦ φανερόν ἐστιν ἐν αὐτοῖς: ὁ θεὸς γὰρ αὐτοῖς ἐφανέρωσεν.”

Note the word γνωστὸ which derives from the word γνωστός which means known, notable. Knowledge of God is apparent and knowable from nature, but while that should inform a person’s values, it doesn’t really say anything about a person’s values and that is why Saint Paut goes on to say:

“Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”

In the Greek this is rendered as:

“διότι γνόντες τὸν θεὸν οὐχ ὡς θεὸν ἐδόξασαν ἢ ηὐχαρίστησαν, ἀλλ’ ἐματαιώθησαν ἐν τοῖς διαλογισμοῖς αὐτῶν καὶ ἐσκοτίσθη ἡ ἀσύνετος αὐτῶν καρδία.”

Note the word γνόντες which derives from the verb γινώσκω which means to know, understand, perceive, have knowledge of.

People instinctively and intuitively KNOW (scio in Latin or γινώσκω in Greek) that there is a God and what His rules for morality are. That says NOTHING (apparently) about their values for “non sicut Deum glorificaverunt” or “οὐχ ὡς θεὸν ἐδόξασαν.” And that describes today’s fall and decline of Western civilization.

Does that make sense?

PS, I really hope I didn’t mess up my Greek & Latin too much. It’s been as many years as since I went to navy nuke school.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Wednesday, October 4, AD 2017 10:53am

Another PS.

Pope Saint John Paul II writes in the 2nd paragraph of part 106 within his encyclical Fides et Ratio the following:

“Finally, I cannot fail to address a word to scientists, whose research offers an ever greater knowledge of the universe as a whole and of the incredibly rich array of its component parts, animate and inanimate, with their complex atomic and molecular structures. So far has science come, especially in this century, that its achievements never cease to amaze us. In expressing my admiration and in offering encouragement to these brave pioneers of scientific research, to whom humanity owes so much of its current development, I would urge them to continue their efforts without ever abandoning the sapiential horizon within which scientific and technological achievements are wedded to the philosophical and ethical values which are the distinctive and indelible mark of the human person. Scientists are well aware that ‘the search for truth, even when it concerns a finite reality of the world or of man, is never-ending, but always points beyond to something higher than the immediate object of study, to the questions which give access to Mystery.'”

Science by itself doesn’t say anything about values, but scientists – those employing the scientific method – must remain aware that “….’the search for truth….always points beyond to something higher than the immediate object of study, to the questions which give access to Mystery.” I would suggest that that something higher can only be known by Faith, but is informed by Reason. The 2nd paragraph of part 15 would seem to confirm this:

“….the truth made known to us by Revelation is neither the product nor the consummation of an argument devised by human reason. It appears instead as something gratuitous, which itself stirs thought and seeks acceptance as an expression of love.”

And parts 35 and 37 state in part:

“….the truth conferred by Revelation is a truth to be understood in the light of reason.”

” Following Saint Paul, other writers of the early centuries, especially Saint Irenaeus and Tertullian, sound the alarm when confronted with a cultural perspective which sought to subordinate the truth of Revelation to the interpretation of the philosophers [today we would perhaps say scientists].”

There is lots of other good stuff in that encyclical, all of which cannot be reproduced here. Please see:

http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio.html

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, October 4, AD 2017 11:50am

Moral values are predicated on natural law of who man is and is created to be. Man’s search for TRUTH is his pursuit of Happiness. The free will of man gives INFORMED CONSENT. INFORMED CONSENT is only valid at emancipation. B4UACT is a group of child psychiatrists who in Baltimore several years ago tried to have adult child sex legalized; rape legalized. That will happen when the court agrees that INFORMED CONSENT is valid from a child, no longer when the child is emancipated. A child becomes a ward of the court when his civil rights are threatened and removed. Dredd Scott, Terry Schiavo, Baby Roe, were all denied protection of their civil rights by the court. So are pregnant minor children denied protection from the courts. Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in her book that she wants fourteen year old girls to have INFORMED CONSENT for sex but not for signing a contract, driving, voting, drinking, owning a gun or serving in the military. Ginsburg, a law professor from Rutgers was shooed into the Supreme Court without any questions about her religion or any opposition.
Children are a captive audience, without INFORMED CONSENT, without the capacity to make fine decisions in their pursuit of Happiness, their emancipation to make fine decisions, to make moral decisions to rule their lives. And it is for minor children and all future generations, our constitutional Posterity that morality and especially freedom must be safeguarded.
INFORMED CONSENT is the mark of a free man not possessed by the world, the devil or the flesh, not by sex, nor money, nor concupiscence, original sin. INFORMED CONSENT can only be given by the innocent conscience of man. Innocence must be safeguarded for civilization to flourish. The newly begotten morally and legally innocent child is the standard of Justice for the state.
When innocence and INFORMED CONSENT can be regulated by the courts, man is no longer free.
If man is forced by the courts to forfeit his freedom, WHO IS MAN?

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, October 4, AD 2017 12:05pm

The court will tell us WHAT a man is, a zir or a zis, but unless the court acknowledges the transcendent soul of man and tells us WHO is man, the courts are no longer the personification of the perfect Justice of God; only the finite mumblings of an idiotocracy.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Wednesday, October 4, AD 2017 1:13pm

Thank you. Very good and beautifully thorough.
As you know, I was referring to the reality, not to our knowledge of it. ( or even more so, to our opinion of it) 🙂
I appreciate you, my American Catholic compatriots, and the ongoing heatseeking search for truth.
Mary DV- “only the finite mumblings of an idiotocracy.” 🙂

Philip Nachazel
Philip Nachazel
Wednesday, October 4, AD 2017 2:54pm

Mary De Voe.

“Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in her book that she wants fourteen year old girls to have INFORMED CONSENT for sex but not for signing a contract, driving, voting, drinking, owning a gun or serving in the military.”

Without having the opportunity to ask her, I will ask you your take on why SCOTUS Judge RBG would want girls of fourteen years old to have informed consent?

I’m having difficulty trying to understand why she would favor such an action. Of course she loves the right to kill babies in their mothers wombs so I’m not surprised by her “morality” or lack thereof.

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, October 4, AD 2017 4:06pm

Sexual liberation and abortion. The lower courts were denying parental notification, declaring minor girls emancipated or wards of the court because of Roe and capable of making decisions to abort their babies. The court never acknowledged the humanity of the soul in the womb.
Ginsburg wants international law to rule over our Constitution, the terrible power of an atheistic regime to subjugate the sovereignty of America wielded by the Supreme Court.
I really do not know how to respond to you query, Philip. Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the Hugh Hefner of the Supreme Court.

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, October 4, AD 2017 4:20pm

An eleven year old girl was sexually abused by her father and then by his 40 year old buddy.. The buddy’s defense was that she “wanted it”. The court bought it.
It is incumbent upon a citizen of good will for the common good to provide good counsel, food, shelter and an education for the minor child until she is emancipated and can give INFORMED CONSENT. Taking advantage of the victim of sexual abuse is criminal. He ought to have been charged to support her for the rest of her life as the Bible decrees for rape. Virginity and innocence are the targets in destroying America.

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, October 4, AD 2017 4:44pm

LCQ: ““Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”
A tree praises God, its Creator, by being a tree. A rock praises God by being a rock. Man praises God by being a man. HOMO SAPIENS, a man of wisdom, a man of moral values.
Anzlyne: “I appreciate you, my American Catholic compatriots, and the ongoing heatseeking search for truth.”
I, too, appreciate this ongoing heatseeking search for TRUTH. I appreciate being appreciated as well.

Philip Nachazel
Philip Nachazel
Wednesday, October 4, AD 2017 4:47pm

“Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the Hugh Hefner of the Supreme Court.”

Everyone leaves a legacy Mary. The likes of which Ms. Ginsburg will be most remembered for her lack of compassion in regards to the most vulnerable Americans in US history. The baby in the womb. Please join me in prayer for her expeditious retirement and a Judicial replacement who believes in the right to LIFE.

Thanks for your explanations.

“The Hugh Hefner of the Supreme Court.”
Exploitation knows no boundaries nor does it profit the culprits who know right from wrong, but choose the latter of the two.
In the very end all will stand silent before the merciful and just judge. All of us.
Lord have mercy.

exNOAAman
exNOAAman
Wednesday, October 4, AD 2017 8:11pm

“Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the Hugh Hefner of the Supreme Court.”
Hef couldn’t have been that annoying, could he?

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Wednesday, October 4, AD 2017 11:51pm

“One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.”

As I have been wont to say, there is nothing more dangerous than a highly educated ignoramus.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, October 5, AD 2017 2:29am

“Please join me in prayer for her expeditious retirement and a Judicial replacement who believes in the right to LIFE.”
Our Lady of Fatima promised that the devil would be chained and sent back to hell.
“Hef couldn’t have been that annoying, could he?”
Hef could have been Ms. Ginsburg’s mentor. Sexual exploitation, the denial of the innocent human soul and the majesty of chastity.

Michael Dowd
Michael Dowd
Thursday, October 5, AD 2017 3:12am

What does it mean when all of our leading institutions (business, education, religion) embrace irrationality in the form of political correctness? Obviously, it means the devil is in charge as he is the personification of lies. To abandon God is to abandon truth.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Thursday, October 5, AD 2017 4:27am

Mary De Voe: “I appreciate being appreciated as well.”

Yes, Mary, you are indeed appreciated. Often I do not comment on what you write because, really, you said it all, to which I could obviously add nothing substantive.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, October 5, AD 2017 11:50am

LQC and what you write could fill another whole brain but never my heart.

Donald Link
Monday, October 9, AD 2017 11:15am

One would think that with all the advances in social science and psychology over the past century and a half, that concentration of effort would be made on enabling people with gender neurosis to adjust and adapt their lives to their condition. Instead we have supposedly learned people in the fields, along with their lay sycophants and hangers on, affirming this disorder and thereby providing no support in at least leading a productive and orderly life. What we actually have is a desperate effort by so called “normal people” to mainstream the aberrant so they can luxuriate in their own superiority. There is also not a small amount “zoo observation” here as witness the attendance of a large number of straights at pride festivals.

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